Do Children\u27s Advocacy Centers improve families’ experiences of child sexual abuse investigations?

Abstract Objective The Children\u27s Advocacy Center (CAC) model of child abuse investigation is designed to be more child and family-friendly than traditional methods, but there have been no rigorous studies of their effect on children\u27s and caregivers’ experience. Data collected as part of the Multi-Site Evaluation of Children\u27s Advocacy Centers were used to examine whether CACs improve caregivers’ and children\u27s satisfaction with investigations. Methods Nonoffending caregiver and child satisfaction were assessed during research interviews, including the administration of a 14-item Investigation Satisfaction Scale (ISS) for caregivers. Two hundred and twenty-nine sexual abuse cases investigated through a CAC were compared to 55 cases investigated in communities with no CAC. Results Hierarchical linear regression results indicated that caregivers in CAC cases were more satisfied with the investigation than those from comparison sites, even after controlling for a number of relevant variables. There were few differences between CAC and comparison samples on children\u27s satisfaction. Children described moderate to high satisfaction with the investigation, while a minority expressed concerns about their experience. Conclusions The CAC model shows promise for improving families’ experiences, but to build upon this promise, agencies will need to systematize procedures for refining and adapting the model as new research becomes available

Radiation from accelerated black holes in an anti-de Sitter universe

We study gravitational and electromagnetic radiation generated by uniformly accelerated charged black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetime. This is described by the C-metric exact solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations with a negative cosmological constant Lambda. We explicitly find and interpret the pattern of radiation that characterizes the dependence of the fields on a null direction from which the (timelike) conformal infinity is approached. This directional pattern exhibits specific properties which are more complicated if compared with recent analogous results obtained for asymptotic behavior of fields near a de Sitter-like infinity. In particular, for large acceleration the anti-de Sitter-like infinity is divided by Killing horizons into several distinct domains with a different structure of principal null directions, in which the patterns of radiation differ.Comment: 19 pages, 11 colour figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D [Low quality figures are included in this version because of arXive size restrictions. The version with the standard quality figures is available at http://utf.mff.cuni.cz/~podolsky/jppubl.htm.

Light painting photography makes particulate matter air pollution visible

The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution causes approximately seven million premature deaths worldwide each year. Solutions to air pollution are well known, yet this rarely equates to easily actionable. Here we demonstrate how art science collaboration can successfully highlight the issue of air pollution and create wider civic discourse around its amelioration. We document a light painting photographic technique that uses data from calibrated low-cost particulate matter sensors to measure and depict air pollution. We also use a postcard technique to grasp individuals’ sentiments regarding air pollution. The photographs from three countries, Ethiopia, India and United Kingdom, visually highlight the importance of location and occupation upon human exposure. The photographs are used as a proxy to communicate and create dialogues, spaces and places about air pollution. The sentiment analysis show how this approach can foster awareness and create agency for stakeholders to take actions to tackle air pollution

Enumeration of condition-dependent dense modules in protein interaction networks

Motivation: Modern systems biology aims at understanding how the different molecular components of a biological cell interact. Often, cellular functions are performed by complexes consisting of many different proteins. The composition of these complexes may change according to the cellular environment, and one protein may be involved in several different processes. The automatic discovery of functional complexes from protein interaction data is challenging. While previous approaches use approximations to extract dense modules, our approach exactly solves the problem of dense module enumeration. Furthermore, constraints from additional information sources such as gene expression and phenotype data can be integrated, so we can systematically mine for dense modules with interesting profiles

The Impact of Advocacy Organizations on Low-Income Housing Policy in U.S. Cities

Financial support for affordable housing competes with many other municipal priorities. This work seeks to explain the variation in support for affordable housing among U.S. cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Using multivariate statistical analysis, this research investigates political explanations for the level of city expenditures on housing and community with a particular interest in the influence of housing advocacy organizations (AOs). Data for the model were gathered from secondary sources, including the U.S. Census and the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Among other results, the analysis indicates that, on average, the political maturity of AOs has a statistically significant, positive effect on local housing and community development expenditures

Development and preliminary validation of a Greek-language outpatient satisfaction questionnaire with principal components and multi-trait analyses

BACKGROUND: In the recent years there is a growing interest in Greece concerning the measurement of the satisfaction of patients who are visiting the outpatient clinics of National Health System (NHS) general acute hospitals. The aim of this study is therefore to develop a patient satisfaction questionnaire and provide its preliminary validation. METHODS: A questionnaire in Greek has been developed by literature review, researchers' on the spot observation and interviews. Pretesting has been followed by telephone surveys in two short-term general NHS hospitals in Macedonia, Greece. A proportional stratified random sample of 285 subjects and a second random sample of 100 outpatients, drawn on March 2004, have been employed for the analysis. These have resulted in scale creation via Principal Components Analysis and psychometric testing for internal consistency, test-retest and interrater reliability as well as construct validity. RESULTS: Four summated scales have emerged regarding the pure outpatient component of the patients' visits, namely medical examination, hospital environment, comfort and appointment time. Cronbach's alpha coefficients and Pearson, Spearman and intraclass correlations indicate a high degree of scale reliability and validity. Two other scales -lab appointment time and lab experience- capture the apparently distinct yet complementary visitor experience related to the radiographic and laboratory tests. Psychometric tests are equally promising, however, some discriminant validity differences lack statistical significance. CONCLUSION: The instrument appears to be reliable and valid regarding the pure outpatient experience, whereas more research employing larger samples is required in order to establish the apparent psychometric properties of the complementary radiographic and laboratory-testing process, which is only relevant to about 25% of the subjects analysed here

Historical Theology at public universities matter

South African universities are in the process of serious transformation and restructuring. The place of faculties of theology at universities has come under the spotlight resulting in the closure of several theological faculties or in the moving of theology to other faculties, mainly humanities or arts. Theology is under pressure and in the current academic environment, Church History, in its traditional form, has all but disappeared from South African universities.  This article is an attempt to address the current situation. Whilst this article looks at the issue of theology at public universities, its main focus is to explore the future study of church history in the context of universities and, in particular, a Faculty of Theology. Understanding church history in the broad framework as Historical Theology, this article asserts the significance of church history at public universities, but points out the need to restructure the Department giving due consideration to community engagement, internationalisation, transformation, africanisation and interreligious collaboration. All of these would have a serious impact on teaching, learning and research

Biocontrol Potential of Forest Tree Endophytes

Peer reviewe